The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)  is relied on by consumers who are looking for a new vehicle and drivers already on the road for years. The NHTSA tests each vehicle in a variety of potential crash situations. But the NHTSA has recently revised its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), also known as the Five-Star Safety Rating System, including such new aspects as an additional crash test, a new test dummy to represent smaller passengers and new injury criteria for the existing side-impact test. It also has added an overall summary rating intended to make it easier for consumers to assess a new vehicle’s safety at a glance.

This program revision marks one of the biggest changes since safety testing was first conducted in 1978. The first vehicles to undergo the new crash tests are 2011 models, but because the scores will be fundamentally different, they cannot be compared to prior years. Additionally, visitors to car dealerships might not see the ratings on vehicle window stickers for a few months — or longer. The revised testing program will also make consumers aware of whether the vehicle comes equipped with any crash-avoidance technology, such as electronic stability control, a lane-departure warning system or forward-collision warning system. Though the technologies are not factored into the scoring for the star rating, NHTSA will put the information in a more prominent location on the window sticker, where consumers will already be looking for safety information.

The other NCAP tests — frontal crash, side impact and rollover — are largely unchanged, but the addition of the different-sized dummies and the data they collect will yield different results. All of the crash and safety tests carry a certain weighting that will factor into the new overall score, which is intended to make it easier to compare a vehicle to others that consumers might consider buying. In the past there would only be star ratings for each category of test, without anything to tie together the results for buyers.